Google.org is offering $1million in charitable funding to support programmes to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Head Brand and Reputation, Africa-Google Mojolaoluwa Aderemi-Makinde said the funding was as a part of a series of new initiatives aimed at supporting women-owned businesses.
Aderemi-Makinde said this at a virtual event on Tuesday to mark the International Women’s Day tagged ‘Know Her Name’.
According to her, research shows that 58 per cent of small and medium-sized business (SMB) entrepreneurs in Africa were women.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that ‘Know HerName’ is a virtual event organised by Google to project Women entrepreneurs in commemoration of International Women’s Day (IWD) with 2022 themed ‘Breaking The Bias’.
Head Brand and Reputation, Africa – Google said that in spite of this, businesses ran by women showed, on average, 34 per cent lower profits than those run by their male counterparts.
She said that a woman was also less likely to receive funding and investment.
“This is why we are announcing a series of initiatives today, aimed at providing the support women need to grow their businesses.
“In addition to the funding announcement, Google has also announced #LookMeUp, a campaign to showcase women entrepreneurs and tell their stories.
“These stories feature women like Vivian Nwakah in Nigeria, who launched Medsaf, a pharma supply chain solution to help Nigerians get access to quality pharmaceutical health care services.
“Mary Mwange, CEO and founder of Data Integrated who is driving innovation in the mobile payments sector in Nairobi, Kenya and Mosa Mkhize in South Africa, who launched Origins Publishers to provide her children – and others like them – with books in their home languages,’’ she said.
Aderemi-Makinde said Google was also providing free tools to support women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and had launched an intensive programme to drive the discovery of women-owned businesses through Google Business Profiles.
